Housekeeping (Faber Modern Classics)

About the Book

Abandoned by a succession of relatives, orphaned sisters Ruthie and Lucille find themselves in the care of their eccentric aunt Sylvie in their rural home town in Idaho. Ruthie narrates the sisters' story as Lucille moves out into the world and Ruth falls further back into her own family's dark past. Against the stunning backdrop of a bleak wintery landscape in a small desolate town, Marilynne Robinson's first novel is a powerful portrayal of loss, loneliness and the struggle towards adulthood.

In an interview in the Guardian in 2009 after winning the Orange Prize Marilynne Robinson said 'It seems to me that the small drama of conversation and thought and reflection, that is so much more individual, so much less clichéd than - I mean when people set out on an adventure, I think 90 times out of 100, they've read about it in a brochure. That's not the part of life that interests me.'

Abandoned by a succession of relatives, orphaned sisters Ruthie and Lucille find themselves in the care of their eccentric aunt Sylvie in their rural home town in Idaho. Ruthie narrates the sisters' story as Lucille moves out into the world and Ruth falls further back into her own family's dark past. Against the stunning backdrop of a bleak wintery landscape in a small desolate town, Marilynne Robinson's first novel is a powerful portrayal of loss, loneliness and the struggle towards adulthood.
In an interview in the Guardian in 2009 after winning the Orange Prize Marilynne Robinson said 'It seems to me that the small drama of conversation and thought and reflection, that is so much more individual, so much less clichéd than - I mean when people set out on an adventure, I think 90 times out of 100, they've read about it in a brochure. That's not the part of life that interests me.'

Marilynne Robinson

Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson's first novel, was acclaimed by critics and later filmed by Bill Forsyth. She is also the author of a non-fiction title, the controversial Mother Country. Marilynne Robinson lives in New England.

“'A classic . . . Like a siren Robinson pulls you into her treacherously fluid, beautifully realised, other world.'”

- Guardian

“'A found myself reading slowly, then more slowly -- this is not a novel to be hurried through, for every sentence is a delight.'”